2014.01.06 - The Mirror Cracked
One hour ago, in a top-secret laboratory on the outskirts of Metropolis... The shockwave is what finishes it off. The facility probably could have survived the sudden flash-freeze. It might have been recoverable even after someone took a flamethrower to the majority of the structure. There's even a chance that after a bulldozer ran through several important structural beams, some of the equipment could have been saved. But when the bulldozer rockets straight upward, leaving a massive sonic boom in his wake, anything of value is pretty much reduced to rubble and/or junk. 'Anything of value' includes quite a few experiments, and quite a few scientists. But fortunately for our story, it doesn't include the man whose job it is to protect all of the nerds and their petri dishes. Guardian managed to come away from the accident with only a mild concussion, several broken ribs, a black eye, a nose bleed, and a horrible ringing in his ears. The effects are already starting to lessen, though it will probably be some time before the swelling goes down. Around him, people are dying and maimed, but he has a job to do. As he runs toward the motor pool, he prays that his ride is still intact and that the man on the other side of his communicator watch will still be functional enough to answer. "Dubbilex! Are you there? Come on, pick up, we've got to track down the subject before he exposes us all!" The voice on the other end of the line sounds both defeated and worried. "Oh, it's too late to limit exposure, Guardian. The subject is already in Metropolis. We'll have to hope someone there can stop him. God help them." Several miles away, a man is looking through the window of a discount party store. There, in the front window, a cheap Superman costume is displayed, marked down significantly from its premium Halloween price. "That am terrible suit. Me am not going to steal it." SOMEWHERE IN CALIFORNIA. . . As the fires rage all around, Superman hangs high above the fray. Frozen wind blows out from his epicenter, dousing the flames and putting the multi-acre fire out within moments. As he glides down gently, he gives a nod to the Fire Marshall. "Thank you, Superman. If you hadn't been here, that development over the ridge would probably not have lasted the night." "Not a problem, Marshal. I'm glad I was able to get here in time. Were the houses evacuated?" Superman looks out over the valley from the side of the mountain and then back to the officer in charge. "They were. Bout an hour ago, Superman." "That's good. . ." But Superman's mood falters as he hears something within his earbud. "You alright?" asks Marshal Cotter. "I. . .I'd better go." Without any further warning, Superman shoots off from the ground, headed eastward. IN HALO CORP TOWERS. . . "Magik, there's been an incident in the city. Seismic activity consistant with explosive force has been detected." Void's form shimmers into being near Illyana Rasputina as she's making tea in the kitchen area of Stormwatch's command center. The blonde looks over to the AI's projection. "And I'm up for recon, hmm? Fine. Gimmie the last-known." She lifts her hands and a stepping disk appears, teleporting her away. A heartbeat later, she appears the coordinates Void provided, dressed in her white hooded cloak and tunic, taking a nice high perch to look around. As Guardian emerges from the wreckage, Matrix is not too far away - trying to help what people she can quickly in the path of destruction. Ripping open a car so that she can get the people inside -out- before throwing it into something *else* that's already exploded because - yep - that car's exploding too. Setting the people down carefully, she leaps into the air again and tries to get a bid on that... THING, whatever it was! Lor-Zod, in his civilian human identity of Chris, has found some other kids his age in Central Park, and has joined in a snowball fight. This, in itself, is training in a sense, as Chris has to be ever-so-gentle in his throws, and forcing himself to miss his targets. In all, as he slightly overdoes both, he comes off as a clumsy and weak kid. Still, he's having fun... At least, until he hears the explosion. "Gotta go," he calls to the others, waving and turning to run into the woods. As soon as he's out of view, is in the air and off. He pauses a split second on the way to deposit his civilian clothes on a rooftop, and now as Zenith flies towards the source of the sound. OUT IN THE HARBOR.. Nadira lurks at her secret sandwich eating station(Okay, third spire in Lady Liberty's Crown); Nadira Ena-Am feasts upon her extorted Rueben sandwich. The explosion is enough to caught her super-attention and the stolen police radio takes up the slack. The Rueben becomes a sauerkraut bomb to the center of the pigeon field and she leaps up counting slowly till she reaches a safe altitude. *Foo-BOOM* The lesser known Kryptonian woman bolts it to the area to cheek things out. Her sight amplified in speed and telescopic qualities as she scans the streets to not be taken by surprise on her way to the explosion. A blurred form settles over the destruction, solidifying into Narida. First move is to scan the debris from a safe altitude and figure out what went boom. And she gets on that after making sure she hand checks her hair and scans her uniform for mustard stains. First up, lead, then Kryptonite. Then anything else present. Any cries for help are heard though! And ignored for the moment. From the back, one might not find anything particularly revolting about the man in front of the costume shop. But as he crashes through the window and effortlessly tugs the costume off of the display mannequin, the full extent of his butter face is revealed. He is mercifully quick about changing, moving at 'blur' speeds. When he reappears a slit-second later, his muscular frame is crammed into something the would fit Slim Goodbody a bit to snugly. In his hurry to change, he apparently didn't notice that he put the shirt on inside out, resulting in the screen-printed 'S' image appearing reversed on his chect. A couple of seams rip as he admires himself in the a mirror. "Hurm.... this fits good. Me don't need a new one." As he steps back out of the shop, looking like a properly garish parody of a superhero, the look on his twisted gray face is one of astonishment. "HEY! People! Stop not doing crimes! Am not taking you all to jail!" The cracked version of Superman quickly begins flying around, arresting people for not committing crimes. To facilitate the holding process, he stacks some of the (non-burning) cars up to form a large circle. Which he promtly begins dropping normal citizens into unceremoniously. "You're all not going to JALE!" Atop the semi-circle, several cars have been twisted into letters 'J' 'A' 'L', and 'E' to form a sign of sorts. Superman can barely believe his eyes as he slows and descends upon the mayhem that this bizarre creature is creating. His red feet pad down lightly onto the cement, just outside the 'JALE'. His x-ray vision double checks to make sure the people inside are alright, and then he turns, his cape billows about in a circular fashion. His mouth twists as he tries to put it all together, and his eyes take to the skies to see who is doing this and what his or her motives are. One of Magik's pale brows arch upwards at the goings-on. "What the..." Speaking into her comms she lets Void know, "I see Big Blue on the scene, so whoever this guy is there's a heavy-hitter here. I'm gonna deal with the people Big Ugly's terrorizing." Magik doesn't pass go, she doesn't collect $200, she goes straight to Jale. As in, she teleports in amidst the freaked out civvies. "Calm down," She says, lifting her hands in an attempt to show she's not a threat. She doesn't have the recognition the guy with the 'S' does. She opens a stepping disk like a doorway against one of the 'walls' of the Jale. "Close your eyes, five steps through and you'll be just fine." Another portal opens a fair distance away, out of the direct line of fire but they still might get glimpses of Hell (aka Limbo) if they decide to go through with their eyes open. Oh maaaaan - when Superman arrives, Matrix moves nearby, "Superman - I... what the heck IS he? He came out of some exploded science lab in town, and he... well, he wasn't *dressed*." She could probably put two and two together on her own, but it'll take a while. "Does he look sick to you? That color can't be healthy!" Zenith spends nearly an hour at the scene of the explosion. He doesn't think to ask questions, he's just there making sure people are safe, and unlike most of the others assuming it was just an accident. He's just flying off again when he spots the chaos happening in the street. He flies in closer quickly, probably not as wary as he should be. "What's going on?" Nadira is a little late on the scene of the labs, and while she feels a certain duty to figure out what the humans were up to at the site, it is the noise in the distance she decides is more pressing. A quick turn and she accelerates off to JALE. Nadira skirts in under the sound barrier. The destruction seems to remind her of something, Her eyes scan for fellow Kryptonians, and she is slightly relieved when doesn't hear Ursa or Faora taunting. Of course she does see one Superman, and then another sorta Superman. She stands in the sky a few hundred feet up and back from the corral. Magik is observed, but it doesn't really interest Nadira the fate of the trapped humans and some Earth mutant rescuing them. What is suddenly quite interesting though is the arrival of one more on the scene. Matrix. One thing at a time, the traditional greeting is given "Oh Superman." Followed by the immediate accusation, "What have you done, Kal-El?" she will notice Junior soon, just hasn't yet. It's not likely that Magik could have picked a worse time to stage a jail break, because just as she appears, the twisted version of Superman is arriving with yet another armfull of innocent people. For a second, he looks angry, but the anger is quickly replaced by mirth. "Jalebreak? Me am not happy to see good reform." So... apparently he sees an attempt at breaking out of jail as a good thing, one which he will not stand in the way of. "Don't let that teach you a lesson!" he bellows at the fresh load of people he drops into the jale. Now that the place has been emptied out, he'll have his work cut out for him if he wants to refill the prison. But... Metropolis is full of people who aren't doing anything wrong at this time of night. Unfortunately, somewhere in the immediate vicinity, someone is not only not doing anything wrong, he's doing something very right. A man has stopped to help pull a trapped family out of a car. Despite seeming all but oblivious to the arrivals of quite a few Kryptonians, this relatively minor act of kindness does not escape the Man of Slightly-Melted Steel's notice. "Death penalteeee!" The man becomes a blur, moving toward the do-gooder faster than the (human) eye can follow. His eyes begin glowing blue, as if he's about to fire some sort of energy beam from them. Superman nods to Illyana as she begins shuffling people away. He shakes his head to Matrix and Zenith, spitcurl dancing upon his forehead. "I have no idea." Speaking of things he has no idea about Nadira takes flight and mocks him from above. "Wait-who are you? Are you part of this?" His hand motions towards the spoiled Kryptonian project. But Superman doesn't wait for an answer. As he sees the creature looking to attack, Superman launches himself as fast as he can with two outstretched fists, aimed straight at Bizarro's stomach!!! While Superman busies himself taking the fight to Bizarro, Matrix just... sort of GLARES at Nadira. But there's no time to deal with all that right now; once Illyana gets the civillians out of the way and Superman's got the big beast's attention, Matrix knocks away the 'J A L E' with a telekinetic blast - just enough to knock the 'toys' over, rather than fling them willy-nilly where they might hurt anyone. As he sees the strange figure in the Superman costume on the attack, Zenith, like Superman, blurs into action. However, where Superman goes on the attack, Zenith goes for the do-gooder target, and the person he's rescuing, trying to pull them out of danger and over to the escape portal. Well, now that is interesting, isn't it? Nadira decides as the sudden blur of the warped version of Superman flings himself at the human, which, she missed doing the good deed. Then the real Kal-El is off to collide with his less charming version. What to do..? It gets less than a second of thought and she chooses. She bolts ahead of Superman's intended interception point to block the human if, however unlikely, Superman doesn't. Hands raised before her and she actually lands for more resistance force, as if asphalt will really help. Now she notices, belatedly, the hero known as Zenith. And he has the human she was going to shield. For all the good it'll do the guy. One Man of Steel colliding with one bizarre clone at high speeds. A quick check of the numbers would indicate a shockwave easily enough to liquefy the guts of any human in the vicinity. Of course, since everyone is moving at speeds greater than that of said shockwave, it's likely that there will be plenty of time for 'someone' to get everyone out of harm's way. Speaking of the bizarre clone, he seems (strangely enough) to be perfectly fine getting gut punched by Superman. As he absorbs the full force of the impact, he barely even flinches. It doesn't bother him. But what 'does' bother him is the sight of the costume, and more particularly the man in it. His face twists almost instantaneously into a look of pure rage and he screams "Ugly man!" From his eyes, bolts of some sort of clearish energy fire, freezing the air around them and creating beams of ice. If Guardian were looking for the perfect time to make a dramatic entrance, this would be it. However, the only drama anyone is going to get is him arriving on the scene on the back of an incredibly fast (and almost certainly not street legal) blue and gold motorcycle. "Dubbilex! I've located the subject. Please advise." From the monitor under the bike's windshield, the grayish face of the alien named Dubbilex can be seen, fingers steepled in front of his nose. "Subject B1 doesn't have any weaknesses. He's, as you can see, functionally similar to Superman, but appears to have suffered some sort of mental deterioration during the duplication process." As his bike skids to a halt about fifty meters away from the jale, the look on Guardian's face is one of incredulity, despite having seen the damage the subject left in his wake. "So, you're saying what exactly? He's like Superman, but with retard strength?" "Pretty much." Superman looks shocked as his attack failed to knock Bizarro down. It's a disconcerting feeling: Even the most high character heroes can often take things for granted, and with as many times and as many foes as he's faced, Superman may be a bit presumptuous. He's used to being the biggest. The fastest. The strongest. And when all of the sudden you're not the baddest one on the block. It takes you by pause. Speaking of blocks, Superman is encased in one, a bluish mass of blocky eyes all around his body. For a moment things are still, but the frozen cube begins to turn orange, then red, and then bursts into a thousand pieces as Superman re-emerges. "You've got to stop this!" Superman reaches back and delivers a mighty punch towards Bizarro's face!!! Trying to think of what she CAN do... Matrix decides to do the only thing she can actually think of at the moment. Taking a moment to focus, she starts to... grow? And get paler - and then her mini-dress is turning into wh... yep. She just turned into Bizarro. Flying around to try and get the creature's attention while Superman is punching it, maybe she can distract it - get it to follow her somewhere less densely populated. Of course, 'she' tries to get his attention by whistling loudly, then putting her thumb on her nose and wiggling the fingers while blowing the biggest super-raspberry she can manage. "THBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBTTTTT!" Once he's helped the last of the innocents get away, Zenith turns back to the battle. Flying into the air, he keeps his distance, glaring his heat vision in a blast at the creature's back while Superman is escaping from the ice. He holds back in any follow-up attack he had planned, grinning a little as he sees Matrix's attempt to distract the creature. If Nadira were very good at her job, she would pay more attention to Guardian than the more eye catching display occurring between the two titans. Kryptonians aren't perfect though, they just think the are. Good news for Guardian, likely. Besides, Junior also has her attention. It is a natural mistake to assume the good Samaritan is actually the most important human around. Son of Zod or Kal-El? Zenith can wait a moment, a quick scan to make sure Powergirl isn't going to attack, she is out there some where, all punchy punchy, but not here, yet. She zooms from the ground after the fighting between. "Out of the city." She calls out to Superman in the native language of Krypton. She points in the intended direction and sees - Another Bizarro -, "There are two of them! You handle this one." Another blow, another blow shrugged off. Apparently chalky, deformed skin with lumps all over it is somewhat more resiliant than the Kryptonian norm. Let that be a lesson for the Superfriends if they ever want to find a way to get even tougher. "Bad, ugly man make Number One happy! Number One won't kill bad ugly man!" And with that, 'Number One' proceeds to attempt to do just the opposite of that. However, his attack is far more wide-ranging than a simple punch in Superman's direction. Instead, he attempts to get just about everyone with a blast of flamethrower-esque breath. The kind of breath that will melt metal can't be pleasant to smell. But it's then that he notices his 'other' (and more accurate) double blowing raspberries at him. "Pretty, good man is making fun of me!" The predictable 'whoosh' precedes the equally predictable high-speed pursuit of Matrix. "Wait, how am I supposed to...?" Guardian already looks the worse for wear, but now he also looks rather put out. His target just zoomed away again, and all he's got to chase him with is a motorcycle. Good luck with that. "Come on, Dubbilex, use that big brain of yours. We need a plan. On the bright side though, there are about eight Supermen here, and some of them are women. I thought there were only like three." Superman gets the blast full front and center. The area around him lights up in fire and heat, but almost as soon as it does, Superman counters with ice breath of his own to help dampen the heat. But just like that, the fire stops when Bizarro notices Matrix' quick thinking. When Bizarro takes off, Superman follows right behind him, his brain racking for a way to overwhelm the beast. If he's Kryptonian, as Superman surmises, perhaps Kryptonite would damage him. But unfortunately the only establishment to hold such rocks have recently had them stolen. As he burrows through the air, heading upwards in chase, Superman speaks into his communicator. "Someone talk to the hero in gold and blue. See if he's got any ideas. I'm fresh out." "Oh, NO," Matrix says with Bizarro's voice but NOT his broken inflection, when she sees that not only is Bizarro coming after her as planned... but so is NADIRA! "CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP CRAP!" she shouts, again in his voice, because her plan is TECHNICALLY working -- she just hopes she's fast enough to get far enough away before she ends up maybe dead. Again. WHOOSH! In most battles, Zenith is a force to be reckoned with. In this one, he's barely a knat. Bizarro didn't even notice his heat vision. So, when Superman calls for someone to talk to Guardian, Zenith does just that. While the others zip off, he flies over to land by Guardian, saying, "Hello. Superman wants to know if you have any ideas how to stop... Whatever that is." Despite, thus far, appearance to the counter, Nadira is actually on the sharper end of the Krypto spectrum. When the Kryptonian woman sudden notices the pseudo Kryptonian right next to her, locked on the same target as her. She hears fake, fake Superman speak more coherently. Slides into Bizarro's side, not trying to over power the brute, she just makes geometry her friend. Letting the nudge plus the thing's momentum make him miss the originally shared target while she angles up to miss above. "Don't worry, civillian. I've got this well in hand." Guardian has, so far, contributed absolutely nothing of value. That does not stop him from over-promising though. "Just got to chat with my associate here to finalize the plan." He leans forward, staring at the monitor more intently. "Come on, Dubby, what have you got?" "Multiple Supermen on the scene, you say? Well... why not have them attack simultaneously? Can they drag him into the atmosphere and then... punch him quite a bit?" "That's actually a really good plan. Hey kid!" Guardian motions to the young man "Tell Superman and his friends they've got to coordinate their attacks, he's too tough for them to try to take down individually. Drag him away from the city, and then punch him a lot." Superman hits the afterburners, so to speak, and reaches to catch Bizarro up under the arms. He lifts as hard as he can, and if successful, takes he and Bizarro higher and higher up into the clouds. In the meantime, he tries to squeeze upon Bizarro to attempt to immobilize him. Hopefully, the others can get to him quickly. Batter's up. Up and out and OH THANK GOD NADIRA CAUGHT ON - Matrix stops flapping her arms in a panic and, while angling her OWN course to follow Superman and Nadira up, up, and away - Matrix turns back into herself. Black hair and bangs are much cooler than chalk skin and backwards S's. Nodding, Zenith says, "Thanks." Then he's off, flying fast to try to catch up. As he flies, he says into his communicator, "Superman, he suggested we coordinate attacks and all hit him at once." Once he's said this, he pushes himself faster, breaking the sound barrier. Do a barrel roll, Nadira! The not so well known daughter of the House of Am pulls back to make loop de loop and reconsider the fight once she is safely on the opposite side of Kal-El from Bizarro she begins pursuit of both up, up. and away as it were. Superman has the fake version in an arm lock.. Taking him towards the direction of space. Nadira decides to just go with it and catches up as quickly as she can. Now, oh tragedy and desperation, she has to grab Kal-El by his waist and pull-push to help over power Bizarro. How sad this is, forced to grope Superman. What girl want to get stuck doing that job? Ahem. And hey, little Zod and Matrix are on the way up to help! "Don't stop! You am making me happy! You would like me when me am happy!" Never underestimate the value of a good wrestling hold when attempting to subdue someone who can knock over buildings. 'Number One' realizes very quickly that he won't be able to beat Superman off by flailing about, so instead he focuses on flying in the 'opposite' direction of Superman, effectively slowing their ascent significantly. Of course, at this point, they're already well above the skyscrapers. "Well, this couldn't get any worse. Our well-hidden, top-secret facility is destroyed, most of our staff our dead, we've been exposed, and we let a monster loose in Metropolis. And the cherry on top: the monster that we let loose is such a moronic abomination that everyone will think our nerds are really bad at science. This is a great day for Project Cadmus." Guardian can't exactly contribute to the fight from the ground, so he simply rests on the seat of his still-running motorcycle and gripes. "Attack him!" Superman yells out, apparently willing to overlook that attack to his midsection by the Kryptonian if it means getting some assistance here. He begins to beat Bizarro mercilessly about the face with superspeedy punches that blast from either side. He also lets the Cadmus Reject go, which will make it more difficult to keep him in tow, but the Kryptonians need to end this fight. Now. Keeping her distance, because the ones who can hit the hardest are the ones who need to do most of the up-close punching, Matrix decides to do all HER punching with her BRAIN! Her telekinetic blasts will hopefully have the added benefit of buffeting Bizarro in such a way that he stays 'penned in' to the punching zone. Zenith manages to catch up, he's there just in time to join the attack. Moving with all his superspeed, he joins in the attack, punching and punching and heat-visioning and punching some more, not holding back in the slightest. If Nadira were more like Ursa and Faora, she would consider all this ganging up on one foe dishonorable. She isn't, cheating is her preferred way of fighting. Once momentum favors Superman with Bizarro, Nadira takes a deep breath of atmosphere before it gets too thin. Then she lets go and spins around. She goes in behind Biz, hopefully, to unleash a series of kidney punches. Zenith attacks with admirable bravery, and Nadira addresses him in short order, "Where have you been? Your mother has been worried sick about you, Lor-Zod." Nadira, doesn't bother with the eye beams, well aware the are the fastest way to expend her yellow sun radiation. Sure, he's tough, but the moment the Kryptonians started ganging up on the clone this was pretty much a done deal. They might have to argue about it after the fact, but ultimately, it doesn't matter whose was the punch that finally knocked the big guy out. What matters is that it happened. The lights go out behind his eyes, and he slumps over, held aloft only by whoever has the bad fortune of being saddled with that responsibility. Down on the ground, Guardian watches through a pair of blue and gold binoculars. He punches the air celebratorily when he sees the monster go limp, but then grimaces in pain. Ribs still haven't healed up yet, rapid healing be damned. "Now the hard part begins, I've got to convince Superman to turn his evil clone back over to the shadowy organization that created it in the first place. I might need more advice, Dubbilex." After Bizarro is beaten to a pulp, Superman carries him down by the scruff of his neck, unconscious, and throws him into a heap down on the ground not far from Guardian. He peers at the hero. "Who are you?" "And more importantly: Who is this?" While Superman is dealing with the important matters at hand, Matrix takes a moment to breathe a giant sigh of relief - then look uneasily over at Nadira. "... Thanks for not punching *me* to death back there." She means it! Zenith lets out a breath of relief as the creature is knocked unconscious. Following Superman down, he looks to Nadira, "I've, kind of, been avoiding her. Last time we talked, she wanted me to help kill someone. Don't think she'll kill them without me, so staying away until I figure out how to tell her she can't just kill someone on this world. She wouldn't listen last time." He quiets, though, to listen as Superman confronts Guardian. Presuming the group as a whole casually decends, just incase Bizarro wakes. Nadira nods to Matrix, "I told you, I am not your enemy.. Or the enemy of this world. But, you are welcome." she states to the assumed Kryptonian, "Though we need to talk." Nadira's attention returns to young Zod and her eyes grow wide, "She is your mother." That is about as good as Nadira's nannying skills get. She focuses in on the talk though, after all the biggest thing is to find out what that thing is, and where it came from. "Thank you for your assistance, all of you. Unfortunately, the answers to those questions are far beyond your clearance levels. In fact, technically speaking, neither myself nor 'Mensa' over there were ever actually here." Guardian props himself up on his motorcycle, and assumes his best cop pose. "Here's the official word: a criminal attempted to impersonate Superman. You fine heroes stopped him. He's in police custody. Good job team." He dismounts the bike, leaving his shield attached to the handlebars. As he begins walking toward the unconscious body, some sort of rotorless helicopter-like vehicle makes a sharp turn around the closest skyscraper and quickly lands about a dozen meters away from the body. A team of men in unidentified tactical gear storms out of the craft, surrounding 'Number One.' "Ah, right on time. Again, thanks for your help. I'll be taking it from here." This doesn't seem to sit well with Superman, who is about to protest audibly. But even as he tries he gets railroaded by Guardian's speech. "Wait, what does this have to do with the BSA? Who do you work for? W---" But it's clear that Guardian's not listening. "Special Agents Mulder and Scully," Matrix tells Superman quite sagely. Of course, it's entirely possible she's watched way too much television while she's been on Earth. "We'll just have to spy on them. We're going to spy on them, right?" Zenith blinks, looking towards Guardian and then those that arrive to claim Bizarro. He starts to say something, then stops, since even Superman isn't getting answers, and he just watches, unsure what to do. There is a red glow in Nadira's eyes as she looks at the collection team's vehicle. So close to unleasing a deadly bolt of the Kryptonian heat beam into the vehicle. She doesn't though, instead her eyes return to normal and she just watches. Her hands settle behind her at the small of her back, and she rocks on the ball of her feet. "And now, Matrix.. Lor-Zod, pay attention to what happens. You will see why you should reconsider your loyalties when this has played out." She further faces Zenith though, "You are Kryptonian, if you need my assistance, I am Nadira Ena-Am. I would be happy to offer what aid either of you require to learn of your home and your people." Category:Log